The French Revolution Summary and Analysis

The Industrial Revolution is the main influence on the world's economy in the 19th century, Hobsbawm claims, and the French Revolution is that century's greatest influence on politics and ideology. While other revolutions take place during this period, none are as radical or "fundamental" as the French Revolution, he says, and none influenced political thought in the same elemental way.

By the 1780s, France has a thriving world trade that rivals Britain's, but unlike Britian which has a foreign policy dictated by capitalist goals, France is still an absolute monarchy, although an "enlightened" one that places competent men from the growing middle class in offices of power that had traditionally been held by noblemen. The nobility, left without any political power, begin to exercise their hereditary rights to these offices, replacing more effective people and weakening the...